


Caffeine

by fr1day



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Caffiene, Coffee, Crying, Exhaustion, Hurt/Comfort, Men of Letters Bunker, Not ship you degenerates, Sleep Deprivation, Trans Character, Trans Kevin Tran, i write only angst nothing else, lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-05 14:16:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15865278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fr1day/pseuds/fr1day
Summary: Sam’s been worried about Kevin. Kevin thinks that Sam should mind his own business.





	Caffeine

Kevin swirls the dregs of his coffee in one hand and downs it, wiping his mouth with a trembling arm as he picks up the tablet again. It shakes- as it always does- and blurs his vision, aggravating his nausea. He decides he needs more coffee.

Kevin loads up the coffee machine with a few cups of soft brown powder and watches it drip into the jug below. It’s rhythmic, but random at the same time, which is why he likes to lean back on the counter and watch it drip. The light was bothering him, and he turned it off, so the coffee machine is illuminated only by the soft yellow glow of a lamp from the other room.

His binder feels tight and squeezes across his chest, and some vacant corner of his mind that isn’t cluttered with words from the tablet wonders how long he’s been wearing it. It doesn’t really matter, he guesses.

He watches the dark drips of liquid fill up the jug, bit by bit, and he thinks about how if this ever ends, the first thing he’s going to drink is a nice, cool glass of lemonade.

A shadow passes in front of the kitchen doorway for a second, and Kevin jolts. He turns his head quickly towards the source, hating how fast his heart rate jumps. It was never like this when the most important thing he had to worry about was passing his entrance exams.

“Hello?” He asks, his voice hoarse. He tenses up and almost jumps off of the counter when a large shape comes into view, but he relaxes when Sam’s face is illuminated by the light from the other room.

The man’s eyes are red, his hair messy with static. He yawns hugely as he waves awkwardly at Kevin, making for the sink. 

Kevin goes back to watching the coffee machine drip, seeing Sam out of the corner of his eye wash his hands and rub cool water on his eyes. He figures one of them should say something, maybe, but Sam looks like he just went ten rounds with a pagan god of sleep so Kevin supplies.

“Hey, man, why’re you up so late?”

Sam huffs out a laugh, filling up a glass with water and taking a small sip. He turns towards Kevin, looking unsteady on his feet, and murmurs, “Could say the same to you.” 

He nods towards the coffee machine, much to Kevin’s chagrin. “Burning the midnight oil?”

Kevin shrugs.

“You know you can sleep _sometimes_ , right?”

Kevin shrugs again. There are some things which he doesn’t like to talk about, and his sleeps schedule is one of those things. There’s nothing to talk about: it’s fucked, just like everything else in his life.

“Hey, Kev, you know it’s okay to talk to me, right?”

The coffee machine beeps, and they both jump.

Kevin picks his mug up from the counter beside him and takes the jug from the machine. He doesn’t say anything. The coffee streams into his cup, and it’s oddly mesmerising, the dark brown liquid filling the stained sides of the mug with heat.

Sam shifts next to him, and Kevin jolts. His hand shakes. He feels what’s going to happen before it actually does. And he sucks in a panicked breath as boiling hot coffee splashes onto his hand.

Kevin registers Sam grabbing the mug before he can drop it- thank _god_ for his hunter reflexes- but he can only watch as the pot clatters to the floor. Being made of plastic, it doesn’t break, but hot coffee splashes out of it and onto the floor as Kevin staggers backwards, his hand throbbing with the burn.

“ _Fuck!_ ” he hisses, lurching towards the sink and shoving his fingers under freezing water. He feels like kicking himself, or kicking Sam, he’s just so _angry_ right now. He doesn’t turn around, but he can hear Sam setting down the mug and starting to clean up the spilled coffee.

He leans over the sink and feels the cold metal on his arms. He tries to stay calm and feels himself trembling with rage. Why does he always _fuck something up?_ It’s not fair, none of it is fair, and this is the fucking _icing_ on the bloody three-tiered cake, he can’t even make himself a coffee without fucking that up.

He’s not going to cry. He’s not going to _fucking_ cry, not in front of godamn Sam freaking Winchester, not over something so idiotically _stupid_ \- 

He feels Sam put a hand on his shoulder and he tenses up and it all comes pouring out in one broken sob.

Kevin feels his face crumple and his shoulders shake. Tears push under his eyelids and track down his face, warm and wet, and he can hear his own desperate breathing in his effort to hold back.

_This can’t be happening. Please, don’t let this be happening._

”Kev, Kev, hey, it’s okay. Look at me.”

Kevin lets himself slide to the floor, his back to the counter. _fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck this is the worst this is the godamn worst oh god oh god stop crying stop fucking embarrassing yourself you piece of shit-_

He puts his arms over his face in shame, muffling his sobs. Now that they’ve started, he can’t stop them, and they’re drawn out of his body in whimpers and groans. Sam’s shadow looms over him and he twitches away.

 _”Leave me alone,”_ he whispers, and his jaw works around another sob.

Sam doesn’t leave. He feels the hunter sit down, next to him on the cold, tiled floor, and his entire body stiffens when he feels an arm around his shoulder wrap him into a hug.

Kevin shudders violently and it becomes too much for him. He’s sobbing in earnest now, tears trickling down his face in torrents as he leans into the rare comfort. Sam hugs him gently, tenderly, almost like a brother, and it forces new tears down his face, because _he doesn’t deserve this_ , he can’t even translate the damn tablet, he’s a freak and at the same time he’s so _fucking frustrated_ \- all these emotions are shoved out of him as he cries into Sam’s chest.

“Kevin, you alright, buddy?”

Squinting around his tears, Kevin looks upward. He wipes away the snot on his upper lip with his shirt and shudders. 

“I just k-kinda had a mental breakdown in the middle of the kitchen and started crying into your shirt, so no, I don’t think I’m alright.”

Sam laughs gently and wipes the wetness off Kevin’s face with a thumb. It’s a strangely tender gesture, and Kevin appreciates it but it’s also kind of embarrassing, especially since he just kinda had a mental breakdown in the middle of the kitchen and started crying into Sam’s shirt. 

“Hey.” 

Kevin hadn’t realised he was shaking again until Sam squeezed the arm around his back gently.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“I-I...” Kevin trails off. He feels exhausted, the caffeine in his body depleted. 

“It’s just... the tablet. Everything. Some... stuff. I’ve just been worrying about some stuff, and trying to read the tablet’s been making me have th-these weird migraines, and I’m just, I don’t know. I just don’t know. What if I never get out of this?”

Vocalising the last part, Kevin’s voice cracks. He groans and scrubs furiously at his eyes again.

“Sorry.”

“Kevin, it’s alright.”

Kevin rests his arms on his knees and leans his head down. Sam has no business sounding so damn _reassuring,_ especially when he knows the guy doesn’t know jack shit what he’s talking about.

“You have a chance. You _will_ get out of this, I swear, Kevin. You’ll go to college and you’ll get a degree and you’ll live a normal and amazing and successful life. And for now, you got us, buddy. You can talk to us, you can talk to _me_ , and I swear I’ll help you, no matter what the hell it is. ‘Cause I’ve been there, man, with the pressure, and everyone looking to you, and you don’t even wanna be there. But Kevin, you’re allowed to have issues. You’re allowed to have emotions. you’re allowed to have a life.”

Kevin almost starts crying again, his jaw trembling, but instead he wraps his arms around Sam Winchester and holds him in one of the warmest hugs he’s ever given anybody in his life.

Sam tenses, but hugs him back. He’s treating him like a brother right now. Kevin’s privelaged, he knows Sam rarely shows physical affection with most people, maybe excluding his brother and Cas. But he guesses he isn’t most people.

They both go back to bed that night, and Kevin gets more sleep than he’s had in weeks. They don’t mention what happened, the next morning, watching Dean fry bacon and Sam start to make more coffee, shaking the tin to get the last dregs of powder out. They don’t mention it at all.

But Kevin thinks, now, there’s some sort of unspoken agreement between them. A pact, maybe. It’s no big deal.

——

Later, when Sam remembers his hand clamping down on Kevin’s head and drawing the light from his body in one smite, he feels like he’s going to be sick.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope this wasn’t too out of character; this is one of my first supernatural fics and I wanted to try my hand at writing Kevin. He had to crack under all that pressure sometime. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!! :D stay classy gang!


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